Why didn't the Republicans know?

Since early Wednesday morning, every Republican I have seen on media has been able to easily identify why Mitt lost.

Why couldn't they identify that the day before Mitt lost? Or the month before, or the year before? Why did all those people, up to the very last minute, throw all that effort and all that money into a plan of action that failed, and the next morning get up and know why it failed? Were they fostering delusion all that time? Why?

Here is a passage from the David Brooks column in today's New York Times.

"If I were given a few minutes with the Republican billionaires, I’d say: spend less money on marketing and more on product development. Spend less on “super PACs” and more on research. Find people who can shift the debate away from the abstract frameworks — like Big Government vs. Small Government. Find people who can go out with notebooks and study specific, grounded everyday problems: what exactly does it take these days to rise? What exactly happens to the ambitious kid in Akron at each stage of life in this new economy? What are the best ways to rouse ambition and open fields of opportunity?

"Don’t get hung up on whether the federal government is 20 percent or 22 percent of G.D.P. Let Democrats be the party of security, defending the 20th-century welfare state. Be the party that celebrates work and inflames enterprise. Use any tool, public or private, to help people transform their lives."

In all the months before the election, the Republican billionaires were cast as the one percent, moving farther and father away from the 99 percent in share of national wealth and pouring billions into the Republican campaign to protect and foster that separation. Why didn't Brooks sit down with them then? Was he deluded into thinking it wouldn't do any good, that the one percent didn't give a damn about the 99 percent? Or is he deluded today, thinking that they would?